The winner of a Bolivian beauty contest for indigenous women has been stripped of her title, just moments after winning, after judges noticed she was wearing false plaits.
Walter Gomez, the pageant organiser, announced the decision on Saturday, expressing doubts that the winner was a genuine Cholita Pacena, the name for Indian women from La Paz.
The judges "disqualified the winner because they realised she didn't have plaits, that the plaits she had were false," said Gomez.
"Having short hair means they don't live like Cholitas."
Mariela Molinedo, the disgraced Miss Cholita, had won the competition a day earlier, seeing off competition from thirteen other contestants.
Although mainstream beauty contests are popular in Bolivia, Friday's Miss Cholita Pacena pageant does not feature bikinis, but rather indigenous women who wear the traditional dress of wide skirt, bowler hat and long plaited hair.
The competition seeks to instill pride in indigenous women and contestants have to make a speech in the native Aymara language to prove their Cholita credentials.
The scandal is not the first to hit the pageant. In 2004, the winner caused a stir after her coronation by saying she did not normally wear traditional dress.